First of all, it is a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance poets. A brief history of the movement begins the book, and there are short biographies of each of the featured poets in the end matter. The importance of this literary movement, in light of current events, should be one we remember and study and celebrate.

"These literary lights, writing at a time when the lynching of black men filled the news, were more than familiar with racial profiling, racial violence, and every variety of injustice imaginable. Yet they ascended to great heights in spite of it all...Above all, they understood how to make the most of their freedom, despite living in a nation that had not then, and has not yet, fully realized its promise of freedom and justice for all." --Nikki Grimes, in the forward "The Harlem Renaissance"

Also of note are the gorgeous illustrations. Fifteen illustrators contributed to make this book as vibrant in pictures as it is in the words. Short biographies of the artists in the end matter highlight the talents of these illustrators.

Far and away the most amazing thing about this book is the unique (and challenging!) form in which Nikki Grimes writes her poems of tribute -- the "Golden Shovel." For each of Grimes' poems, she takes a line (or sometimes the whole poem) and uses each of the words as the last word in her poem. Hence, the title of the book.

For example, the line "A thousand hearts echo the sigh" from Clara Ann Thompson's poem, "The Minor Key" is followed by this poem by Nikki Grimes:

COMMON DENOMINATOR

by Nikki Grimes

Anger is a hard itch to scratch; laughter a

secret tickle we let out in a thousand

sneezes, sometimes to camouflage cracked hearts;

love, envy, fear--we all hear their echo.

Peel us to the core, we're indistinguishable. Press the

solar plexus of any, you'll hear the selfsame sigh.

I gave this form a try, using the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost. I liked adding to a poem of submission an element of strength and endurance.

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY

by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

WE ARE HERE TO STAY

by Mary Lee Hahn

We'll begin again from scratch, with nothing.

There is not enough gold

in all the coffers of the world that can

stop us. We are here to stay.

Buffy has the Christmas Eve Eve edition of the Poetry Friday roundup at Buffy's Blog. Happy Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza to you!

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

This is the story of a boy who has been born into slavery, but whose father is also his master. His mother tells him that his father is an important man and that someday he will know just how important.

Eventually, the boy's father keeps his promise and frees the boy and his siblings, but not his mother. She walks away from the plantation and is not pursued.

The boy's siblings change their names and, passing for white, take on new identities. James keeps his place in the African American community as a well-respected carpenter.

James has a few items that belonged to his father, including an inkwell. He wonders if his father, Thomas Jefferson, used ink from that inkwell to write the Declaration of Independence, or if he used it to record the names of his slaves on his lists of property.

In the author's note of Freedom Over Me, we learn that Ashley Bryan acquired documents of slavery, including the plantation estate inventory listing the eleven slaves in this book.

Pairs of free verse poems tell about the slaves' lives and work in one, and about their true names, their dreams, hopes and talents in the other.

This important book will help readers understand that there is not one story of Slave or of Slavery. Each and every enslaved person was a unique human being, priceless in ways that no one else could ever own.

These two books can help lay a foundation for a study of the Civil Rights Movement and the importance of holding our nation accountable for the freedoms set forth in our Constitution.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6. This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

For the next few weeks, I'll be sharing text sets I've been using to deepen conversation and to help students understand topics and issues more deeply. One thing I notice about third graders is that they are all about facts. So starting an informational unit of study in reading is tricky as they sometimes think that reading nonfiction is about facts and restating them. I want them to know that informational reading is far more than that. I want them to move beyond isolated facts and to discover that understanding an issue is different from knowing facts. I want them to see the power of thinking in different ways because of the conversations different texts invite. I want them to see that topics are often the small information of a bigger issue. I want them to see that the more they read and learn about a topic, they more they will wonder and want to learn more.

So I am pulling together small text sets that help students think in a variety of ways about a "topic". The topics connect to our content requirements and I've thought a bit about the order of the way I introduce the texts. I find that I can introduce a topic or issue in 3-4 days by sharing a text a day and tracking the way our thinking changes over time. Then as the year goes on, I'll continue to bring in books that connect back to that topic in some way, building and growing our understanding of issues as we also grow as readers.

Last week, we read 3 books about water. One of our science concepts in 3rd grade is that some of Earthy's resources are limited and the understanding of that.

I started by sharing the book Water is Water by Miranda Paul. This is a great picture book that explains the water cycle and the way water changes in a simple and inviting way. As an added bonus, Emily Arrow has a song (with hand motions) to go along with this book. So we started there. The conversation was fine.

The next day we moved to The Water Princess by Susan Verde, Georgie Badiel and Peter Reynolds. This story is based on the Georgie Baddiel's childhood and shares the hardship of getting clean water to a village each day. Stories-Especially stories about real people matter for our young children to make sense of topics and issues. When I read this book aloud, something in the room shifted as kids realized that this long walk to get water was a daily occurrence for children around the world. Instead of talking about what they learned, the conversation was filled with questions and wonders and "How can this still be happening in the world?". They wondered why it was so hard to get a well. They wondered if children could ever go to school. They wondered why we had such easy access to water. They wondered about wasting water. They wondered how this problem could be fixed. They talked and wondered and contemplated the issue of water as something they had never considered. They went back to the water cycle conversation and the idea that there was only so much water in the world and that meant different things to different people. That we took water for granted and they had never really thought about it. The conversation could have continued all day.

On the third day of this conversation, we watched Ryan's Story from the Ryan's Well Foundation. Seeing what can be done to help communities and how a well can change so much about a community started another conversation. The kids were also interested in the fact that Ryan started this work in first grade AND that he has continued it into his adult life. This conversation centered around the difference that the well made for the community with questions about how many communities needed a well.

One goal for our nonfiction study was for students to see how our thinking changes and grows the more we learn. So we tracked some of our thinking and looked back to see how thinking changed and grew the more we knew. We realized that we had more questions after the 3 texts than we had at the beginning. I worry that often we ask kids to wonder before they know enough to have genuine questions. But after reading and thinking together, they have more questions than any other kind of thinking.

I am collecting texts of all kinds to keep in a mental file of books that can fit into this set. Some seem better suited to older kids or for kids who end up digging more deeply on their own. Others that we might visit later in the year or that I'll keep in a mental file to build on the conversation and to connect this with other topics we read about are:

I think in the past, I found books about a topic and it was no wonder my students were interested in facts. Now I try to find compelling books that go beyond sharing information. I want to tie in not only information but real stories that bring issues around topics to light. As readers I want my students to see the power of reading widely and I want them to see how their thinking changes across time and texts.

(Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released in August! You can order it online at Stenhouse! You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead.)

Here's another whiney, dissatisfied character (with a bunch of REALLY patient friends). Bird hasn't packed a snack for the hike, but he also doesn't want anything the other animals have to offer. In the end, he does taste their snacks, but when his favorite shows up (a worm)...sigh...

Grandmother has had it with all of the bothersome, interfering grandchildren. One day she packs up her knitting and walks off yelling, "Leave me alone!" This is her refrain over and over again as different characters in different settings hamper her ability to sit in a quiet spot and knit. She finally finds peace and quiet in a black hole. Then, in the end...ahhh, finally a character who recovers from a bad case of the crabbies.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6. This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

We are working on finishing up our narratives this month and I introduced some tools that I hope help students see the power of revision and the difference between revision and editing.

We watched Ruth Ayres video on Revision that is the most helpful resource ever on helping kids understand what it means to revise.

I think introduced a variety of tools that could be used for revision. We discussed how these various sticky notes could be used to help us try the strategies Ruth suggests in her video.

The tools seem to invite a high level of engagement because, let's be honest, who doesn't like a cool, new kind of sticky note?

I also had them reflect on their revisions with this page asking them to share the ways that they revised-why did they make these decisions as a writer?

Then I pulled out a basket of red pens to talk about editing. We talked about the final clean up of a piece of writing once the writing is crafted the way that you'd like it. A final few reads to check for those last editing mistakes and fixing those up.

Last year, I did something similar with students and a few of my students created a video sharing the revisions to their own writing. I think learning to revise is a skill that they will carry with them through their lives as writers and I know these skills and tools will help them grow as writers throughout the year.

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(Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released in August! You can order it online at Stenhouse! You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook that began this week by joining our group here.)

Thursday, December 08, 2016

Some days you have to turn off the news
and listen to the bird or truck
or the neighbor screaming out her life.
You have to close all the books and open
all the windows so that whatever swirls
inside can leave and whatever flutters
against the glass can enter. Some days
you have to unplug the phone and step
out to the porch and rock all afternoon
and allow the sun to tell you what to do.
The whole day has to lie ahead of you
like railroad tracks that drift off into gravel.
Some days you have to walk down the wooden
staircase through the evening fog to the river,
where the peach roses are closing,
sit on the grassy bank and wait for the two geese.

Some days when you have to turn off the news, you write. We've been having lots of fun with #haikuforhealing. Heidi said it best:

a fine kettle of

hawks we have here,

rising on hot air

Outsiders have joined in. There's been a poem in Turkish, and one from @broetry.

Hey, we set a record -- the Poetry Friday Roundup Host schedule for January-June 2017 filled up in a single week! Thanks, everyone! Here it is. If you need the code, just shout and I'll email it to you.

Wednesday, December 07, 2016

I've been using the dinosaur book in this series since 2008 (thank you, Amazon purchasing data for that factoid). It's my go-to book at the beginning of the year when we unpack our misconceptions about scientists (not always wild-haired men working in labs) and the work they do (scientific thinking changes over time as scientists use the/a scientific method to gather data and test theories). After reading this book to my class, I have always made the point that science isn't "finished," that there will be plenty of discoveries left for them when they grow up to be scientists!

Somehow I missed using the dinosaur book at the beginning of the year this year, but I tucked it in as a #classroombookaday. Because of the strong community around this hashtag on Twitter, I was alerted to the other books in the series. I borrowed them from the library, but they are now on my Wish List, awaiting the possibility of holiday gift cards. The solar system book and the human body book will align nicely to our 5th grade standards, and the weather book will be a nice review before our state tests! Win-win-win-win for science and the perfect books for my classroom library!

Tuesday, December 06, 2016

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6. This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

We have been busy setting short-term goals this week. Goal-setting has been part of our year since the first few days but as we get more intentional about personal goal-setting and are able to take steps to meet our own goals (as well as to see progress toward goals) we have changed routines around goal-setting a bit. This week, as we reflected on work and set some short-term goals (goals that might be accomplished or worked toward between now and winter break), students recorded their goals above their cubbies.

I created a template that allows students to add goals on sticky notes for reading, writing, math and wonder workshop. The squares on the template are the perfect size for a sticky note and sticky notes give the message that goals will change. Having the goals in a personal space that they can see each day is important I think. So far, each child has set a reading goal and a math goal. The writing goals we are working on are more connected to our narrative writing that we are finishing up this week so we'll create new goals soon. I also plan to work with the kids on more long-term goals for Wonder Workshop.

The template is a simple one. I believe strongly in simple routines for important thinking. I have seen the power in student goal-setting over and over again. As I think about my bigger goals of agency and identity, student goal-setting is critical.

We are also using Seesaw as a way to track and reflect on our learning. I am amazed by this tool and the kids love it. There are so many ways for kids to reflect on artifacts from the year. Many of the kids used Seesaw this week to record the goals that they had written. Seesaw is a great place to track changes in learning. The share features really helps because as kids are invested in each others' goals. They also get new ideas for learning/future goals from peers through the app.

(Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released in August! You can order it online at Stenhouse! You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook that began this week by joining our group here.)

Monday, December 05, 2016

I have LOVED being on the NCTE Charlotte Huck Award Committee for the past three years. I have loved reading with the lens of the Charlotte Huck and I feel like I've done a good job of keeping up with fiction picture books and middle grade fiction novels (although there are several that I haven't read yet..). But I have missed some other kinds of reading I love--I have missed adult fiction. I've missed young adult fiction. And I've missed nonfiction reading. I've squeezed one in every few often but definitely feel like I have missed out on lots of great books in those categories. So in preparation for winter break and winter in general. I am trying to start a small stack. It is a bit tricky getting back into reading after a few years on an award committee. So I am moving back in slowly, thinking about those must reads--books that I am hoping to read sooner rather than later. Here are a few that are on my latest TBR stack.

Friday, December 02, 2016

It's that time again. Six months have passed since last we queued up to host the Poetry Friday roundups.

If you'd like to host a roundup between January and June 2017, leave your choice(s) of date(s) in the comments. I'll update regularly to make it easier to see which dates have been claimed.

What is the Poetry Friday roundup? A gathering of links to posts featuring original or shared poems, or reviews of poetry books. A carnival of poetry posts. Here is an explanation that Rene LaTulippe shared on her blog, No Water River, and here is an article Susan Thomsen wrote for the Poetry Foundation.

Who can do the Poetry Friday roundup? Anyone who is willing to gather the links in some way, shape or form (Mr. Linky, "old school" in the comments-->annotated in the post, or ???) on the Friday of your choice. If you are new to the Poetry Friday community, jump right in, but perhaps choose a date later on so that we can spend some time getting to know each other.

How do you do a Poetry Friday roundup? If you're not sure, stick around for a couple of weeks and watch...and learn! One thing we're finding out is that folks who schedule their posts, or who live in a different time zone than you, appreciate it when the roundup post goes live sometime on Thursday.

How do I get the code for the PF Roundup Schedule for the sidebar of my blog? I'll post it in the files on the Kidlitosphere Yahoo group, and I'd be happy to send it to you if you leave me your email address. You can always find the schedule on the Kidlitosphere Central webpage.

Why would I do a Poetry Friday Roundup? Community, community, community. It's like hosting a poetry party on your blog!

Thursday, December 01, 2016

Last week, I launched my Haiku-a-Day in December project for this year. I was originally inspired by Bob Raczka's book, Santa Clauses: Short Poems from the North Pole, in which Santa writes a haiku a day from December 1-25. I thought, Hey, if Santa can do it, so can I!

Others who have played along in past years have written a month of Christmas Memory haiku. I've never been that organized, going more for Whatever Inspires Me Today, and writing probably as much senryu as haiku, and sometimes just writing short thoughts with 5-7-5 syllables.

I've been studying some Poetry Friday Haiku mentors (looking at you, Robyn and Diane), and I subscribed to David Gerard's Daily Issa. I'm intrigued by the idea of layers of meaning in haiku -- the freedom of expression via metaphor, the foundation of the poem solidly in the natural world. And then, there was that thing that happened in November. I've felt compelled to add my voice to the conversation, but how...what...where...why?

So, I looked around on Twitter, found a hashtag that was previously unused -- #haikuforhealing -- and got started with my Haiku-a-Day in December a week early. It's helping my heart already -- both the writing, and the small community that's growing around #haikuforhealing. In addition to my tweets, I am archiving all of my haiku-Tweets in a single post at Poetrepository.

Join me, if you'd like. Find your voice, and find your audience, be it FaceBook, Twitter, your blog, a rented billboard. Use more than just the #haikuforhealing hashtag if you're so moved. Catherine double tagged a haiku with #commonplacemarvels (why isn't that hashtag chock full of poetry and photos and noticings?). I used #BetsyOurLoss to join the public education community's outrage at the naming of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary.

Today's haiku is a meditation on the passage of time. We can't stop it, we can't hold onto it. Better just to flow with it -- float the best we can, and when we swim, make our strokes sure and clean and powerful.

Bridget has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at wee words for wee ones. The Poetry Roundup Schedule sign-up for January - June will be posted tomorrow (12/2).

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

In the midst of another round of unseasonably high temperatures, I'm dreaming of a snow day.

Before Morning, by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Beth Krommes needs to be your next picture book read aloud, whether to your whole class, or to the child on your lap.

Study the details on the cover carefully for foreshadowing.

Read the story in the pictures along with the story in the words.

Make your wish...and see what happens!

Best in Snow, by April Pulley Sayre is a great companion to Before Morning. With rhyming text and gorgeous photos, Sayre teaches about the formation of snow and the way it changes with temperature shifts. There are more facts in the back of the book.

A Poem for Peter by Andrea Davis Pinkney, and illustrated by Lou Fancher and Steve Johnson, is the perfect third book in this snowy trio. It, too, is a poem. As Pinkney describes, it is a " 'collage verse,' 'bio-poem,' or 'tapestry narrative' in which factual components are layered with a mix of elements." Readers learn the story of the man who created one of the THE most iconic snowy day book AND transformed children's book publishing at the same time by including a "brown-sugar" "cocoa sprite" character.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6. This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

We are getting ready to really dig into nonfiction reading so I am on the lookout for nonfiction books that will engage my students as well as nonfiction books that I could use for mini lessons. I found the perfect book last week. My colleague, Brenda Fields, had Grover Cleveland, Again! A Treasury of American Presidents by KenBurns on her ledge when I walked into her classroom the other day and I had to ask about it and check it out! The next week I picked a copy up from Cover to Cover. What a great find!

There is so much to love about this book. When I was in elementary school, my dad bought me a similar book and I spent tons of time digging into it over the years. When I brought this book into the classroom last week, several kids were anxious to read it. (We keep sticky notes on the popular books so we know who to pass it along to and you can see by this sticky note that there is a long line of kids waiting to get their hands on this one!)

This will definitely be a great book for independent reading. There are so many ways in for kids that it will be accessible to many readers. But I looked more closely at it and realized how perfect it would be for a mini lesson.

One of the things I know my kids need to learn more about is previewing nonfiction. One of the things we'll do early on in our study is to learn how to preview nonfiction differently than we preview fiction. At the beginning of this idea, we'll look at books and series and authors and think about what, as a reader, we can expect before beginning to read. This book seems perfect to introduce this topic. After flipping through it and spending a bit of time with it as a reader, I notice that all of the presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama are included and they seem to be in order of presidency. There are numbers in the top left corner of each spread that tell readers the "number" of each president. Another thing that is consistent is that there is a two page spread on each president. The spread included a box with a photo and basic facts. There is also a multi-paragraph piece that is in nonfiction narrative form telling a bit about the president's life, including his presidency. Then each page has some other interesting information in red boxes. So readers know what to expect on each page. One thing I liked is that there is variety in the craft of the writing so I can see using some of these as mentors for writing too.

I think this will be a great book to introduce the idea of previewing books that are not meant to be read from cover to cover--those nonfiction books that you can dip in and out of. Knowing what to expect as a nonfiction reader, can help with choosing books and with comprehension. And as I said before, this book is far more than a book that makes for a good mini lesson. It is one that will engage a variety of readers.

(Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released in August! You can order it online at Stenhouse! You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook that began this week by joining our group here.)

Monday, November 28, 2016

I have served on the NCTE Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children for the past three years. It has been an amazing experience. I've learned so much and have met so many great people. I was never lucky enough to study under Charlotte Huck but her work has had a huge impact on me and my work.

The Charlotte Huck Award is a new one and I was part of the first committee. The award's commitment is that it "recognizes fiction that has the potential to transform children's lives by inviting compassion, imagination and wonder." I have LOVED reading with the lens of the Charlotte Huck Award as the award recognizes the power of books for a child.

I have also LOVED having the book awards announced at the Children's Book Award Luncheon at the NCTE Annual Convention. If you haven't been to this lunch, you are missing out on a fun time! Previous year's awards are given to authors/illustrators, new awards are announced and there is an author at every table for lunch. This year, I got to sit with Mitali Perkins! And Mary Lee was able to sit with Loren Long! Definitely a fun time!

Loren Long and Mary Lee at the Children's Book Award Luncheon!

This year the 2017 Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction was announced and here are the winners! I would definitely check out all of the books on the list--as it is one of my favorite award lists of the year!

We Are ALSO Proud Members of the Nerdy Book Club

Celebrate!

About Us

Franki and Mary Lee are both teachers, and have been for more than 20 years.

Franki is a fifth grade teacher. She is the author of Beyond Leveled Books (Stenhouse), Still Learning to Read (Stenhouse), Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop (Scholastic) and The Joy of Planning (Choice Literacy). She is also a regular contributor to Choice Literacy.

Mary Lee is a fifth grade teacher. She is the author of Reconsidering Read-Aloud (Stenhouse) and has poems in the Poetry Friday Anthology, the Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School, the Poetry Friday Anthology for Science, the Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations (Pomelo Books), Dear Tomato: An International Crop of Food and Agriculture Poems, National Geographic Books of Nature Poems, and The Best of Today's Little Ditty (2014-15 and 2016).